I talked briefly before about how NBC’s coverage of the opening ceremonies was done very badly with cutting to commercials and by trying to limit worldwide Internet coverage before NBC would show it within the US. However, the coverage of the competition during the 2008 Beijing Olympics has been very well laid covered and with a large amount of information for people who know little about China.

With each competition, NBC has been talking with many of the athletes and giving background on who they are and what they need without being too boring, too annoying, or too simplistic–a remarkable achievement when most of the media nowadays tries to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

What has me amazed is how positive the coverage has been for China and the Beijing Olympics in general. This may be the result of being gracious to the country hosting the games or due to the earthquake that China suffered. There have been many stories about China and what you can find there along with the history of China and even the interaction of China and the US. Some of these topics have covered:

• Chinese cuisine (both good and strange)
• Chinese Acupuncture
• Nixon going to China
• Kite flying
• Chinese athlete training programs
• Beijing’s monuments and parks
• Etc

What has made it particularly well-done is that they actually brought in journalists to stay and work within a foreign country and provide on-the-ground reports about the country, something that has been in dire need for those interested in international affairs.

Lastly, even many of the commercials have been geared towards China and the Olympics, providing very relevant ads that I think play very well to the audience watching. These relevant ads do far better when I actually enjoy watching them because they are interesting! Many of these ads have been very memorable including the Beijing Olympics Mummy dual TV commercial.

Budweiser, GE, and some Canadian apparel HBC(?)

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The media (particularly the American Media such as NBC) still does not understand that the Internet generation does not want to sit and wait a full day to know what has happened in the Beijing Olympics. And we certainly do not want them to cut to commercial in the middle of the fracking opening ceremonies (incidently, this is why soccer is a horrible sport to watch on TV in the US, they cut to commercial, a goal is scored, and we completely miss it).

So, what happens when the mainstream media tries to control online content (such as Viacomm and Youtube)? This:

NBC’s decision to delay broadcasting the opening ceremonies by 12 hours sent people across the country to their computers to poke holes in NBC’s technological wall — by finding newsfeeds on foreign broadcasters’ Web sites and by watching clips of the ceremonies on YouTube and other sites.

In response, NBC sent frantic requests to Web sites, asking them to take down the illicit clips and restrict authorized video to host countries. As the four-hour ceremony progressed, a game of digital whack-a-mole took place. Network executives tried to regulate leaks on the Web and shut down unauthorized video, while viewers deftly traded new links on blogs and on the Twitter site, redirecting one another to coverage from, say, Germany, or a site with a grainy Spanish-language video stream.

As the first Summer Games of the broadband age commenced in China, old network habits have never seemed so archaic — or so irrelevant.

To borrow from Eyes East, this is Olympics 2.0, so stop trying to limit us, we will find ways around what you do.

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北京欢迎你！

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Looks like Beijing is going to have to try a lot harder with less than a month left:

4/7 days Beijing failed to meet its air pollution standards for the Beijing Olympics which were generous. Only 1/7 days made it if Beijing was not given some slack.

How bad is it? Take a look at what Beijing Olympic Games 2008 has:

That said, there is some hope–if the Chinese government can work overtime to get the pollution down (no cars, stopping all construction, shutting down power plants in Hubei), then it really would look as nice as this:

That is one helluva difference.

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Bump and Update I (07/02/2008):

Found the Youtube video:

Here I was eating my dinner and watching TV when an ad came on TV that beautifully meshed in The Mummy 3 with the Beijing Olympics for a TV commercial trailer. Now, regardless of what you may think of The Mummy (1 or 2), from an advertising perspective, that was an amazing mesh of two ads into one TV commercial.

The minute I can find the the commercial up on Youtube or the main site, I’ll link to it here.

Well done.

Update II (07/02/2008):

The main site still does not have it and from an SEO perspective–not very friendly.

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The Olympics haven’t even started, but here I am talking about the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. Why? Got sent a link to the English version of the site for the Shanghai World Expo.

I had to go to Wikipedia to get a better understanding of what a World Expo is and then to the Shanghai World Expo site to understand what it will be about:

Expo 2010 Shanghai China will be a great event to explore the full potential of urban life in the 21st century and a significant period in urban evolution.

Know a couple of friends who’d be interested in that–number of times I tell him he should go to Shanghai just for the architecture.

Expo 2010 Shanghai China will centre on innovation and interaction.

Call me when it centers around inventions.

Expo 2010 Shanghai China will also be a grand international gathering.

This I don’t doubt.

Why bring this up? I recall back in 2003 in one of Pudong’s parks a huge sign proclaiming the World Expo coming to Shanghai in 2010 or so…

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Hung Huang explains (in English) extremely well on the assumptions on both sides and what to learn from the international protests over the Olympics for both sides. This is a must view to really understand the issue:

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Hat tip to RedKemp on this gem:

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